Tell me, how often do you see high level players ACTUALLY use those units? The one of those I see the most is the Magyar Huszars. And even that doesn’t see common use.
Almost never unfortunately. Magyar Huszars are pretty cool.
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Lol.
Only thing byzantines need is an early game buff. They are not a bad flank civ and while it’s an interesting concept, logistica paladins won’t fix any of the issues that byzantines have. They have what to spend their gold on in imp, it’s just that they have trouble getting there.
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Which is why I claimed earlier that every unit he listed sees limited use.
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What issues? Logistics paladins would be cool, and fun. Reason enough
Yet again limited use doesn’t mean bad. This is just the epitome of bad statistics. People in the 50s used to say women shouldn’t be in the workforce because “the free market would hire them if it were a good idea”. Well look how that turned out. Real life has hundreds of these examples where people think they know something and the future proves they were far too confident.
It’s the exact same thing here. Anyone who has been around long enough knows that every time a new meta comes out people say it’s “optimal” for some dumb reason. And literally every time they end up being wrong with respect to how they view some group of underused units or strategies. People keep coming up with new strategies and use off meta units which demonstrate everyone else was overconfident. And everyone who was overconfident never reflects on why they made a poor inference and the cycle repeats.
People have at various times panned cav archers, scorpions, mid game trash/light cav, camels vs CA, boyars, 1v1 paladins, keshiks, elephant archers, Celt siege, stone walls, etc. For one reason or another people have rationalized why these are dumb to use. While some units have needed tweaks there is a difference between saying “at the margin people would be more likely to use this if the cost dropped 5%” and “these units suck but if they were 5% cheaper they would be good”. One indicates they have a good grasp of the true model which underlies optimization processes like this.
I mean even right now we are in the meta of “unit strengths can almost never overcome modest economy deficits”. Yet Byzantine trash/Camels is designed to do exactly this.
Bottom line you all should spend less time throwing out conclusions with massive error bars and spend more time on discussion regarding how to shrink those error bars. These types of threads shouldn’t be “Byzantines need X” they should be “What do we know works and doesn’t work for Byzantines?”
Logistica Paladins can at least make up for the lack of bloodlines and blast furnace because in TG they are one of the worst civs out here, and won’t be OP.
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In team games they are still a pretty solid flank on arabia thanks to their faster imp potential and a very very good closed map flank
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Please stop being such a ‘big brain’ and start using one. Byzantines are lame, in both low and high elo because they have no early or late game advantages outside of cheaper trash.
Outside of skirms, their trash falls off hard.
Berbers are so much better for cheap cav and they still have full skirms. (and even genitours but…)
And they’re not even that defensive of a civ. Late game their bonus means nothing againt the architecture bonus armor.
There are far better civs than them, both in unit availability and appliance, so why not give them a buff?
Point was, if byzantines get FU paladins with logistica and greek fire made then regenerate and getting elite cataphract unlocked you a elite paladin upgrade that made them instantly 105 your opponent if you have more than 5 on the field it wouldn’t change much, if anything.
You can never get to that with a civ without an eco bonus, in TG, let alone in 1v1. Paladin is already a prohibitively expensive upgrade for the vast majority of civs, for all the TGs I have played on open maps very very rarely a non Frank gets to FU paladins. On closed maps, it’s Franks, Huns and Cumans that can afford it. And what those civs have in common is insane eco bonuses that carry them and enable them to do that. Byzantines can barely make do with their cheaper imp, and you want them to get a castle up, then to get logistica, another expensive upgrade.
I don’t think that byzantines should get bloodlines because that would make their camels too good, as well as hussars. They’d turn into perhaps the best trash civ in the game. Blast furnace is debatable.
I am not fundamentally opposed to logistica cataphracts, I very much enjoy unorthodox units and technologies. But giving that to byzantines and calling it a day with their balance is not going to fix any of the issues they have- with being a bad civ in the early game. The other no eco civs like magyars, incas have strong units that carry them early game, and then a not bad imperial composition to aim for.
If I was to buff them I’d do one of the following:
Give them a major eco bonus (the 15% longer lasting resources from mayans is a fair example) and rework greek fire to be usable on land maps as well- makes your ranged units have +1 damage, like a chemistry from the castle. Trash units discount staggered to compensate. 15/20/25% in F/C/I.
Give them a dark/feudal minor eco bonus (the 15% foragers from franks is a fair example), give them either bloodlines or blast furnace.
I’d rather go with the first, as it fits their identity more. You can sprinkle in the paladins with logistica, sure, but on maps besides arena and hideout I don’t think it will make a difference.
Only issue is, much like the spanish, they perhaps are intended to have no eco bonus. Unfortunately that would mean they need yet another early game military bonus to make up for it, and with the cheap trash you can’t really say they need better military per se.
It’s tough, but most of the byzantine issues lay in having a poor early game and having no easily accessible scalable gold unit in the lategame, arbs don’t count, they are bad after early imp. Giving them 1 extra damage there, or sneaking in another buff in post imp (that isn’t impossible to get to before it’s time to start the next game), as well as a small eco should be more than enough.
I think this is a major overbuff. A eco bonus that strong coupled with ranged units with extra damage? The only reason bohemians is balanced is it lacks thumb ring and it’s not a permanent advantage.
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Bohemians have other units in imp to go for and we all know UTs aren’t a thing in the castle age, you always get them either on your way to imp or in imp.
It will be on the stronger side for skirms sure, but that’s the only “fire” thing I could add to the tech.
Maybe give the +1 range as a civ bonus and make the tech into something else, like they did with Panokseon? UTs for water units are just never going to be a good idea.
With a UT that strong? I’d argue it’s worth going for.
+1 range is more reasonable but treads on britons toes
The +1 range I meant for fire ships, starting in castle age.
Obviously if GF is buffed, the price should be increased. And with the really good UTs, how often do you see Yeomen in the castle age? Not much. Even stirrups, arguably the most cost efficient UT in the game is rarely seen before you click up to imp. And with a cav civ you have food to spare while banking for imp. With an archer civ you don’t.
Honestly guys, I think they should have their imp cost discounted to 50%. They were an empire when most in-game civs didn’t even exist! Byzantium should be an Imp civ, a late game civ, a rush imp civ but the incentive to go imp is so small you may as well keep spamming those camels.
Turks have instant hussars and chemistry in imp, italians have all ages 15% cheaper, uni techs cheaper, gunpowder units cheaper, and even a unique melee unit that can be utilized (condotierro).
Give them blast furnace and make imp cheaper, it doesnt make castle spam any stronger, feudal cheap units any stronger, it just gives them the chance to go fast imp from which point they can utilize the many units at their disposal.
Also, anyone whos talking about them having a huge tech tree and that giving blast furnace is too much, just look at civs like Saracens, Tatars and Persians, they might have less options alltogether, but at least theyre all generic or even stronger.
Greek fire giving +1 damage to archer sounds kinda cool, but maybe it could give some land units bonus building damage instead, I dont know 
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Byzantines 25% cheaper spear-line, skirmisher, camel is stronger than all bonus of Turks. Turks bonuses give power spike in Castle Age and early Imperial Age only and this aggression is refuted by Pros for 10 years I don’t remember. In late game, Turks has +1 PA Hussar+ 20 hp Cavalry Archer + 1 Range Bombard Cannon only while Byzantines 25% cheaper Halberdier + Skirmisher + tanky buildings is stronger than Turks late game.
Imp cost discounted to 50% good idea but saying that Byzantines (I am excluding Roman Empire because it is out of AOE2 timeframe) was empire when most in-game civs didn’t even exist totally false. China was Empire since 221 BC and Indian Empires even older, Huns and Goths are contemporary to Byzantines. Giving Byzantine Empire only defensive units is kind of lame for a game. Byzantines should have offensive units as well like Varangian Guard (like Condottiero) with team bonus instead of lame Monks heal faster bonus.
Varagrian Guard (25% cheaper in Byzantines)
- 90 food 50 gold
- 105 hp
- 14 melee attack
- attack bonuses: +10 attack vs archers, +3 vs Standard Building, +3 vs Eagle Warrior
- armor: 2/3
- speed: 1.1
- rate of fire: 2.0
- armor classes: Infantry, Unique Unit
Probably broken, but how about new unique building called “Mercenary barracks”. This building would allow byzantine player to create Varangian guards and unique units of their allies for slightly higher cost and longer training time. Building could also cost some gold and/or stone so units can’t be massed that easily.
I hope the devs don’t even waste their time reading these threads, because most people commenting have NO idea how to balance a civ. 50% cheaper imp, with 25% cheaper counter units, plus blast furnace and +1 attack for archers lmao. Yeah that’s not OP at all!!
please just leave the civ alone, it’s perfect the way it is.
oh btw in addition to the 50% cheaper imp, how about something like, if you reach imp first you automatically win? i think that would make people play Byz more.
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Bloodlines is the only thing Byzantines have needing since the addition of the new civs to stay competitive, but the devs have refused that idea and instead of that they were given town patrol and doubled the healing rate for monks…great isn’t it?
Bloodlines is a massive buff but it will have to come with some adjustments, like decreasing the trash discount to 20%, losing HCA and reducing elite cata HP by 20.
And before those tournament lovers come and try to disqualify any argument claiming that byzantines are fine cause they have been used in kotd4(a map with no wood where the extra sight and cheap trash comes handy)1x1 is only 1/3 of all the player base, team games are the most played game mode and in that subject byzantines are utterly inferior.
I don’t think Cata become OP with +20 hp buff. Only decreasing elite Cata’s hp by 10 would be good (+20 (130) / +10 (160) (elite) hp buff). Cata counter infantries especially spear-line but with only 1 PA, Cata is meh unit. For instance similar Leitis has same hp and PA but it is cheaper unit, has cheaper upgrades and better against heavy cavalry (simply counter all heavy cavalries), Leitis also counter infantries and Camels just like Cataphract and only weaker against spear-line.
Varagrian Guard is as expensive as Paladin but 19% slower, with 42% less hp it die even generic Cavalier. Its power is mostly rely on not counterred by Camels and somewhat counter archers with +10 bonus attack. Main problem would be Vikings Varagrian Guard. Malians, Teutons, Aztecs wouldn’t be problem.